Disappear: Into Shadow

- CHAPTER FOUR -

Dark green wall sconces gave pale illumination to the darkened conference room. The dim lights hung heavy shadows on the rich mahogany panelled walls. A giant table of blood red marble ran the length of the room. There were no empty seats and the faces of those assembled around the table all looked towards its head.

A man with large, hunched shoulders stared in silence at his audience. He was Asmodeus, Ruler of Hades. The deepest and oldest layer of the Hells, Hades was bordered by the rank, filth ridden outer territories of its neighbours, Abbadon and Gehenna. Their borders lay closest to the world and were home to the souls unable to release depression and guilt. Of all the realms composing the dark pit that became the Hells, Abbadon and Gehenna held the most souls.

While the population of those frontier realms were greater than Hades, it was on Asmodeus's realm that Hell's foundations were built. The souls of the damned residing there were the worst, the darkest and the defining standards by which all evil was judged. Hades was the abyss: a bottomless pit where terror thrived and no light ever escaped.

Asmodeus was proud of that standard. Few in their respective Hells could make similar claims. He fumed inside thinking, Certainly not the rulers of Abbadon and Gehenna.

Suffering lived strong in those territories, that much was certain. There were many damned souls and the cruel, imaginative, hideous torments devised by their daemons Asmodeus had no issues with. The practices of those outer realms that did disturb him were their fluctuating populations.

For as many souls who suffered there, despite a constant influx, the numbers of the damned remaining within both ebbed and flowed. It was unacceptable to Asmodeus. Surveying the boardroom, virtually every member of the Fallen, the vanquished of Heaven, the darkest of angels had assembled. Asmodeus, wanting to tear the faces from all of their heads, gripped his podium with the heavy hands of a butcher.

His fiery aura of black and red rippled with subtle fire. Brewing with suppressed anger, it flowed over his expensive, Saville Row tailored suit.

The high collar of his shirt and the wide cut of Asmodeus's grey and white pinstriped jacket made him appear neckless. His cold grey eyes stared out into the half-light shrouding his audience. When he finally spoke his voice was detached and colder than his eyes.

"Daemonkind is meant to rule and hold sway over Hell." He said.

The quiet, predatory eyes of the room were focused on his brooding presence. Releasing the podium, Asmodeus pulled his wide fingers from the impressions his powerful grip had left in the curving cherry wood edges. Circling the massive boardroom table, he passed in and out of the heavy shadows.

His voice was low, menacing. "Yet, despite this fact, I know we're losing souls. Right here! In Abbadon! In Gehenna! THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE HELL! YOU DON'T ESCAPE HELL!"

Asmodeus glared at the assembled lords of Hell, his simmering fires threatening to boil over. "THIS WILL STOP IMMEDIATELY!"

Hell's very foundations trembled from his bellow. None of the captive souls ever imagined such a magnitude rumbling through the realm before. Hell had just become worse for it. The eerie silence that followed made its inhabitants uneasy. This new ominous stillness threatened more aftershocks.

"Agents in the Heavens tell us that the time of the balancing is approaching us. The Seraphim Council knows this. Now, you, my Daemonhead know this. We know what hangs in the balance. Control. Power. Dominance. Retribution. WE MUST HAVE MORE SOULS!"